Place:Loftus, North Riding of Yorkshire, England

source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names

the text in this section is based on an article in Wikipedia

Loftus is a town and civil parish in North Yorkshire, England. The local council, a unitary authority, is Redcar and Cleveland. It lies in a region between Saltburn by the Sea and the North York Moors. It was formerly known as Lofthouse. The population of the Loftus ward of the Redcar and Cleveland unitary authority taken at the 2011 census was 6,382.

Historically, Loftus was an ecclesiastical parish in the Langbaurgh East Wapentake. In 1894 it became an urban district. In 1934 the urban district was expandedd when it absorbed part of Guisborough Rural District. (Source:North Riding of Yorkshire in Wikipedia)

A Vision of Britain through Time provides the following description of Loftus from John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales of 1870-72:

"LOFTHOUSE, a village, a parish, and a [registration] sub-district in Guisbrough [registration] district, [North Riding of] Yorkshire. The village stands 1½ mile from the coast, 4¾ ESE of Saltburn [railway] station, and 7 NE by E of Guisbrough; and has a post office under Redcar, and a customary weekly market on Thursday.

"The parish contains also the hamlets of South Lofthouse, Wapley, and Streethouses. Acres, 3,935; of which 160 are water. Real property: £5,849, of which £215 are in mines, and £741 in ironworks. Population in 1851: 1,192; in 1861: 1,103. Houses: 253. The property is divided among a few. The manor belongs to the Earl of Zetland. Lofthouse Hall is a chief residence. Aluminous rocks abound; and there are alum works, stone quarries, and brick and tile works. A fine plesiosaurus was found here, and is now in the Yorkshire museum. A circular mound, with an ancient entrenchment, is W of the village. A small Benedictine priory stood at Handall, 1 mile S; was founded in 1133 by William Percy; occupied a charming site, among glens and dales, with a fine view of the ocean; and has left scarcely any vestiges. A sword of Sir R. Bruce, of the time of Elizabeth, was discovered on the site of the chapter-house, under a stone coffin, inscribed "the snake-killer; "and that coffin is supposed to have contained the remains of a valiant young knight who rescued an earl's daughter from a serpent in Scaw-wood. The living is a rectory in the diocese of York. Value: £575. Patron: the Lord Chancellor. The church was rebuilt in 1811, after designs by Bonomi. There are chapels for Independents and Wesleyan Methodists. John Hopkinson, the antiquary, who was so highly respected during the civil war of Charles I. as to receive letters of protection from the rival commanders in Yorkshire, was a resident; and Gen. the Hon. Sir R. Dundas died here in 1844."

Research Tips

• For a map of the parishes in the local area, see this page.
• Original historical documents relating to the North Riding of Yorkshire and North Yorkshire are held at the North Yorkshire County Record Office, Malpas Road, Northallerton, North Yorkshire DL7 8TB
• Family history societies covering the area include the Ryedale Family History Group, the Family History Section of the Yorkshire Archaeological Society (based in the City of York), and the Cleveland, North Yorkshire & South Durham Family History Society (for the Cleveland and Teesside area and the western part of North Yorkshire, commonly known as the "Yorkshire Downs"). A more complete list may be found under the Federation of Family History Societies.
• A History of the County of Yorkshire from British History Online (Victoria County Histories), published 1914 and 1923 (Volume 1: the western part of the North Riding including Richmond and Volume 2: the eastern part of the North Riding including Scarborough and Whitby). A History of the County of York: the City of York is also helpful for the many North Riding parishes that were absorbed into the city during the 19th and 20th centuries.

This is by far the most complete history of the parishes of the North Riding to be found online. The volumes are divided into sections by wapentake (early divisions of the county) and the parishes within each wapentake follow in alphabetical order. The links above open to the indexes covering all the wapentakes in the volume.

• GENUKI has a page on all three ridings of Yorkshire and pages for each of the ancient or ecclesiastical parishes in the county. Under each ancient parish there is a list of the settlements (townships and chapelries) within it and brief description of each. Many of these secondary settlements became civil parishes during the latter half of the 19th century.

These notes are based on a gazetteer dated 1835 and there may have been a number of alterations to the parish setup since then. However, it is worthwhile information for the pre civil registration era. GENUKI provides references to other organizations who hold genealogical information for the local area. There is no guarantee that the website has been kept up to date and the submitter is very firm about his copyright, but this should not stop anyone from reading the material.

• The FamilyTree Wiki has a series of pages similar to those provided by GENUKI which may have been prepared at a later date. The wiki has a link to English Jurisdictions 1851 which gives the registration district and wapentake for each parish, together with statistics from the 1851 census for the area.
• A Vision of Britain through Time, Yorkshire North Riding, section "Units and Statistics" leads to analyses of population and organization of the county from about 1800 through 1974. There are pages available for all civil parishes, municipal boroughs and other administrative divisions which also include historical population and area statistics. Descriptions provided are usually based on a gazetteer of 1870-72.
• Map of the North Riding divisions in 1888 produced by UK Ordnance Survey and provided online by A Vision of Britain through Time
• Map of North Riding divisions in 1944 produced by UK Ordnance Survey and provided online by A Vision of Britain through Time
• Another provider of maps is the National Library of Scotland. In this index the Scottish provision precedes the English one, but the choice of maps for England is still quite vast.
• Yorkshire has a large number of family history and genealogical societies. A list of the societies will be found on the Yorkshire, England page.
• In March 2018 Ancestry announced that its file entitled "Yorkshire, England: Church of England Parish Records, 1538-1873" has been expanded to include another 94 parishes (across the three ridings) and expected it to be expanded further during the year. The entries are taken from previously printed parish registers.
• The chapter of the Victoria County History dealing with Loftus.